Tuesday, February 24, 2015

The Daily Carlo: 50 years ago... on Malcolm X and goon bags

Anyone could tell you the world is in pretty bad shape. The latest climate science is horrific, global inequality and poverty keeps rising and the Western Sydney Wanderers are languishing at the bottom of the A-League ladder with just eight points from 16 games.

So I figured something had to be done and I had a long hard think about what the world truly needed right now. And I concluded: more Carlo Sands on the internet! OMFG! OF COURSE!

But then I thought, how I am going to give the world more Carlo Sands on the internet? And it struck me! I HAVE A BLOG! I may almost never use it, BUT I HAVE ONE!!! THE SOLUTION TO THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS IS AT HAND!!! I WILL BLOG *EVERY DAY*!!!

And so I hereby launch my latest Internet-Carlo Sands-related innovation: The Daily Carlo. It is self-explanatory, I will blog about *something* every single day, more or less, give or take the days I am too hungover and/or drunk to type.

I just can't believe no one has thought of this before! Sure, plenty have maintained daily-updated blogs, that is not new, but not FEATURING CONTENT BY ME! Wow, it is just so obvious now I think about it, it is a miracle no one has beaten me to it!

I expect them in general to be short. Probably very short. Coz I am a fucking busy man. But here we go!!! THE FIRST DAILY CARLO!!!

***

In My Daily Carlo Number One I wish to acknowledge two *very* important 50-year anniversaries for humanity that must be marked: the assassination of Malcolm X in the United States and the invention of "cask wine" -- ie the goon bag -- right here in Australia.

One of the truly great revolutionaries, activists and human beings of the 20th century, African American anti-racist fighter Malcolm X was assassinated 50 years ago on February 21, 1965, probably with active police complicity.

Many of the issues he raised -- of systemic inequality and racist violence, remain pressing issues today.

Malcolm X was one of the all-time great public speakers because he spoke directly, articulately and without any compromise to the victims of the system, as one of the victims of this system, and in doing so helped instill pride, knowledge, awareness, courage and determination in the victims of this system to stop being victims and collectively resist their oppression.

Although he started out as a very successful organiser for the Nation of Islam, which, through a theologically bizarre interpretation of Islam, blamed the "white devils" for racism and abstained from the civil rights struggles of the day, in the last year of his life Malcolm X increasingly saw the global capitalist system as the enemy of humanity and the need for a broad-based mass struggle of all oppressed, whatever their skin colour, to win liberation.

As can be seen in this clip featuring extracts from his 1964 speech to the Oxford Union in England.

And in my opinion, the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, whatever else there is, you’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it, and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built ... And I, for one, will join in with anyone—I don’t care what color you are—as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.

And the second anniversary, as the ever reliable NT News informs us, is that this year marks 50 years since cask wine was invented! YES THE GOON BAG IS TURNING 50!!!

Happy birthday, goon bag!

The NT News explains:

THE humble cask wine may have caused countless hangovers, but it holds a proud place in our nation’s history and today it reaches a major milestone. It’s one of South Australia’s little known inventions, created in the 1960s after riverland winemaker Tom Angove searched for an alternative to the half-gallon flagon...

Here are some little known facts about ‘the cask’:

• Invention was patented in April 1965• It was inspired by the flexible packaging of old goat skins that stored wine in biblical times.• Angove was inspired to store wine in a plastic bag and store it in a box.• The ‘airless flow’ of the cask is why the invention is genius; wine comes out, but no air goes in. Therefore the wine doesn’t become oxidised.

A Big Cask to celebrate cask wine.

But it hasn't always been easy, what with the crypto-prohibitionists and their "complaints" about the "cheap and nasty" nature of goon. In just 2011, there was a campaign to essentially ban cheap goon by means of heavy taxation that would cause its cost to quadruple! IT WAS INSANE, OUTRAGEOUS AND I BLOGGED ABOUT IT HERE!!!

Thanks in no small part to my campaigning on the issue, the goon bag survives to this day, as does the gloroious Australian invention -- one of the few contributions of which our nation can be proud -- the party game of Goon of Fortune!!!

Goon of Fortune.

And, is this my first Daily Carlo, well... I suppose I'll give you all a very special treat! Here is some dodgy footage of the first time I ever performed stand up, in a wild, unfocussed and rambling set that included yelling quite furiously and insistently on the government plot to take our goon away! IKR? Don't thank me, buy me a beer -- via the pay pal button on the right of the blog! GO ON! DO IT!

'This is a fundamental attack on our way of life!' From the very start, I used the medium of stand up to pose the big questions.

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About Me

Gentleman ranter. Proof that if you give a man a mask, he may tell you the truth, but give him enough beer and he'll shout it at you. My life-long ambition is to get more Twitter followers than Taylor Swift (last count, only 34,042,711 behind.) Follow me at @carlogrubsands to make an old man's dream come true.